Under the Weather
by Weasley's Revenge
Summary: When Jen and Gibbs' daughter comes down with strep throat what will they do to make her feel better?  Jibbs


**AN: **I have strep and it sucks. Writing this made me feel better. Jibbs child fluff. Kate is the child her hair his eyes. Oh, and this is sort-of for GeekLoveFan because she's just awesome.

"Mama," Jennifer Shepard turned to see her three year old holding her throat and wincing. "It hurts."

She knelt down to Kate's level and gave her a quick onceover. "What hurts baby?"

She pointed a small finger that was painted a shade of violet, courtesy of one Abigail Scuito, at her mouth. "My throat it hurts when I," she gulped down a swallow and winced.

"It hurts when you swallow." The child nodded. "Let me have a look." She took her daughter's chin and tilted it back so that she could have a better view of her throat. When Kate's tonsils were in view her fears were realized. They held the telltale white dots of strep throat. She tutted quietly. "Katie, you have strep throat."

Kate looked as if her mother had just told her she was dying of cancer. She shook her head fiercely as if her denial would change the situation. "Nuh-uh."

"Yes-uh, so here's what we're going to do. You are gonna go upstairs and wake up daddy to get you some medicine, and I'm going to call Dr. Amy." Her daughter scurried away gleeful at the chance to wake her slumbering father while Jenny pulled out her phone. She scanned her contacts for the number and waited as it rang. After seven rings she got the practices answering machine stating that they were closed on the weekends and being a Saturday definitely meant that it was a weekend.

She walked up the stairs to a chorus of "Yucky, yucky, yucky, yuck!" and figured that Jethro was a having a hard time administering the medicine.

She rapped on the doorframe before she entered the bathroom. "Are you being a good girl for daddy?"

She nodded in childish innocence, but the impish grin on her face suggested otherwise. "I took the bubblegum stuff 'cause it tastes yummm" She hummed the last 'm' making it stretch out, "But the cherry is yucky!" She turned to look bemusedly at her husband, and he shrugged showing her the Chloroseptic spray.

"I tried to tell her that it will make the ouchies go away, but she wouldn't listen." He shook his head in fake concern.

"It's either that or you have to eat the coughdrops." Kate's smug smile faded as she remembered the vile stinging taste that her parents insisted was good for her. She sat on the counter motionless and opened her mouth as her father sprayed the liquid into her throat. She gagged only once.

"Jethro I hate to do this, but she needs antibiotics and the pediatrician is closed, Ducky's at a wedding, and God only knows what Palmer would do. I think we have to go to the ER and just wait it out."

He gave her the look that she had come to recognize meant, "You're crazy, absolutely insane, but I know that it's the right thing." He nodded and said one thing. "Bring a book."

The first thing she noticed about the hospital was the sterile smell. The smell that always brought her back to times that were much less happy and had nothing to do with the child in her arms. Children in Israel thanking God they were alive, Serbia, Russia, the U.K. she had seen too many hospitals. But enough of that they were here for Kate.

She and Jethro approached the front desk and signed Kate into the ER. The nurse looked at her kindly and then turned to her parents. "It's going be a while. If the kid wears a mask and uses sanitizer I'll let her play with the toys. They nodded absent-mindedly and situated themselves.

One hour later Jethro had turned an unattractive shade of puce, and Kate was whimpering in her arms. "It _hurts_ mamma."

"I know baby." She rubbed her daughter's back consolingly before whispering out of the corner of her mouth to Jethro, "You didn't happen to bring your weapon did you?"

"No." His answer was clipped. This was the final straw she put her daughter in her husband's arms marching to the nurse's station. She pulled out her ID.

"You are going to get us to a doctor this instant because if you don't my husband is going to explode. And because if you don't I will tell the Secretary of the Navy that you let my daughter, the person he views as a grandchild, suffer when all she needs is a little amoxicillin."

The nurse looked as if she had been slapped, but nodded none the less. "Of course Ma'am."

She nodded to herself and walked back to her waiting family to tell them the good news. Kate may be sick, but she could save her own child.

**AN: **Fluff always makes me feel better, but so do reviews. :)


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